Collaborative Intelligence

If you've spent any time around me lately, you've probably heard me say something like...

"Hang on... let me brain dump this idea or thought."

😂

Seriously.

Half the conversations I have with AI start with me dumping about six ideas, three rabbit holes, a squirrely idea, a story from yesterday, and something that popped into my head while I was making coffee or even in the shower.

Most of it doesn't make sense.

At least not yet.

Sometimes it's just a pile of thoughts waiting to become something useful.

Then I'll say...

"Can you make sense of what I just said?"

Or...

"Am I crazy, or is there something here?"

Or my personal favorite...

" Take everything I just threw at you and organize it into something a normal person would actually understand."

😂

Then we start sifting through it together.

Some ideas stay.

Some get thrown out.

Some become better after they're challenged.

Some were never very good to begin with.

Sometimes it asks a question I hadn't considered.

Sometimes it reminds me that I'm overthinking something.

And every once in a while... we stumble onto an idea that neither one of us saw coming when the conversation started.

That's how I use AI.

Not to think for me.

To help me organize my thinking.

Sometimes I know exactly what I want to say.

I just can't always get there in a straight line.

Sometimes I need someone—or in this case, something—to ask another question.

Challenge an idea.

Point out something I hadn't considered.

Or simply help me connect thoughts that were already there.

That's why I don't really think of AI as Artificial Intelligence.

I think of it as Collaborative Intelligence.

I don't ask it what to believe.

I don't ask it what my values should be.

I don't ask it to replace experience.

I ask it to help me organize ideas, challenge assumptions, capture everything I am saying and communicate more clearly.

The perspective is still mine.

The conversations are still mine.

The relationships are still mine.

The stories are still mine.

AI just helps me put words around them.

I think that's where a lot of people miss it.

They're trying to figure out whether AI will replace people.

I'm more interested in how it can help people become better.

Better communicators.

Better leaders.

Better listeners.

Better stewards of their time.

For me...

It's another tool.

Like a notebook.

A whiteboard.

A conversation of ideas over coffee.

Or that person you call because you know they'll ask the question you hadn't thought of yet.

That's Collaborative Intelligence.

And honestly...

It's changed the way I work.

Not because it made me smarter.

Because it helped me slow down enough to make better use of what I already had. It gave me a place to brain dump the ideas constantly bouncing around in my head, organize them, challenge them, and turn them into something I could clearly communicate.

— Ed